Ithaca College
Faculty Council
September 4, 2012
Klingenstein Lounge
Present:
D. Birr, L. Black, J. Blumberg, J. Bonnetta, B. Bower, S. Freedman, S. Gordon, J.
Harrington, S. Howard, S. Lahr, D. Lifton, C. McNamara, S. Mauk, B. Murday, S.
Osterreich, T. Patrone, J. Pena-Shaff, J. Rosenthal, P. Rothbart, W. Schlesinger, S.
Stansfield, T. Swensen, D. Tindall
Absent:
J. Stafford
Excused: W. Dann, A. Kissiloff
Guests:
M. Arnold, C. Henderson, M. Kelly, P. Feeney(Ithacan)
1. Open Session None.
2. Approval of Minutes: May 2012 Not available / Refer to newsletter.
3. Provost Report
IC20/20 Advisory Committee – An agenda will be developed at the first meeting (September
7) to help inform conversations with the Institutional Effectiveness Budget Committee
(IEBC) and the President’s Council (PC).
Integrated Core Curriculum – Development of course proposals was done over the summer.
Now working with the Committee for College-wide Requirements (CCR) and the Academic
Policies Committee (APC) to move final elements forward to go through NYS in time for next
fall’s implementation. Provost Kelly thanked faculty, staff, and administrators for work done
over the summer to help move that along.
Student Advising Center – The fall focus is to select a director and develop a structure to
ensure that the College is prepared to serve students in the fall 2013.
Hill Center – moving forward as architects work on creating a final design.
Themes and Perspectives Program - In any given course, there might be students who are
taking a class to satisfy their Themes and Perspectives and other students who are taking it
as part of their major, which means they would have to do another course for their Themes
and Perspectives. Every student has to complete five courses in a theme and those five
courses cannot double count. Departments can request a visit from S. Osterreich and D.
Johnson for clarification and discussion.
Textbook Compliance - The Higher Education Act requires that textbook costs be available
to students at the time that they preregister for classes. If a textbook order is not placed
on time, whatever textbook or set of books used the last time the class was taught becomes
the order, or the faculty member can place an order at or below that cost level. This would
be the policy if a book order needs to change after preregistration as well. There is leeway if
the course has not been assigned an instructor at the time of registration. By spring
semester, a compliance policy will be in place.
A question was asked about how the Registrar’s Office would be getting information for
other kinds of instructional materials that students are required to purchase since that is not
done on an order form. C. Henderson will follow up on that point. N. Pringle will be
working on a more robust conflict of interest policy that will address issues such as using
faculty-authored textbooks in courses.
Student Affairs Campus Life (SACL) Reorganization – This is designed to help ensure that
the College can take full advantage of the entire campus experience in order to advance
student learning.
Comment regarding concerns with SACL integration – A message has been sent to many
dedicated professionals on this campus that with this decision they are diminished in the
eyes of the organization. Everyone in SACL had, as their leader, someone who understood
SACL and that discipline for approximately 30 years and had direct access to the President.
Now their leader is a political scientist from a different discipline who then has to decide
whether to voice their concerns. Moreover, can this job be done by one person to the
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satisfaction of both disciplines? If you are going to supervise subordinates who have routine
tasks, you can have a lot of people under your immediate supervision. Once those tasks
become nuanced and more complex the discipline suggests that it is very hard to keep on
supervising so many different levels of expertise. The provost will have to merge the span
of control that she is inheriting with the span of control that she already has. With this
additional span of control, the provost is taking precious time from faculty’s needs and vice
versa. Faculty, particularly the tenured faculty, need to recognize colleagues in SACL and
honor any skepticism that they may have.
Provost Kelly responded that the president made this decision because he thought it was in
the best interest of student learning and support needs to be shown for those in SACL by
embracing that and engaging in a whole hearted way rather than “us versus them.” There is
absolutely no question that this is a significant reorganization for IC and that the morale
concerns on both sides are important; and although there is some nervousness and
trepidation, there is an equal amount of excitement. There have been some signs, not
visible to others, but clearly visible to her of some logjams being overcome as the College
works on enhancing the students’ educational experience in the way called for in IC20/20.
Focus must remain on the possibilities – this is in fact a recognition that what SACL does is
as critical to a student’s educational experience as what Academic Affairs does. The idea is
to bring the two together.
APC Policy on Repeating a Course
The current policy states that when a student repeats a course all grades are calculated
back into the GPA. After reviewing best practice at other institutions, it is often the case that
the grade that the student receives remains on their transcript, but when they repeat the
course only the higher grade is computed into their GPA. This change was passed by APC
last spring.
Comments:
What is the harm done in making this retroactive for current students? APC has decided not
to make it retroactive because there is an option for appeal to the Provost Office.
Why is the College reaching out to students who are not in good standing and allowing them
to repeat courses while not allowing our better students who are just shy of honors to do
the same thing in hopes that they too can approve their GPA? Those are two separate
issues and that would be a different discussion.
Are there other policies that allow students to repeat a course other than this D+ threshold?
The reason why a student can repeat a class and still get credit for it if they get less than a
D is because they have not mastered the material. They are not repeating the experience.
It is a threshold of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
Plan of action – approval of APC document as is – nothing to preclude approval and going
back to APC to consider retroactive issues.
Motion: Call the Question (Rosenthal), seconded (Hamilton) and unanimously
passed.
Motion: Faculty Council recommends approval of the document submitted by APC.
The motion passed with two abstentions.
4. Announcements and Committee Calls
a) Call for faculty nominees for the search committee for the Vice President of Finance and
Administration. The president has asked Faculty Council to submit 3 or 4 names with the
final choice being the president’s.
Nominees are: Stan Seltzer, John Rosenthal, Scott Erickson, Steve Lahr, Alex Perialas, and
Shaianne Osterreich
Motion: Faculty Council Executive Session (Lahr) seconded (Blumberg) and
unanimously passed.
Representatives chose 4 of the 6 names. The ballots were collected and P. Rothbart will
notify members of the official count.
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It was noted that for future elections, P. Rothbart will post a statement from the nominees
before the election as well as indicate the meeting times and responsibilities of the
committee.
b) Call for faculty nominees for search committee for the Director of Advising and
Achievement Center.
Chose 1 nominee from H&S - James Phrem OR Elizabeth Bleicher
Chose 1 nominee from the professional schools - Alex Perialas OR Helene Larin
The ballots were collected and P. Rothbart will notify members of the official count.
c) Call for nominees for Faculty Council Executive Committee – one semester replacement
Christine McNamara was voted in unanimously.
d) Call for nominees for Parliamentarian – Shaianne Osterreich was voted in unanimously.
e) Call for nominees for Faculty Council representative replacements and one part-time
faculty representative – Elections will be run through the schools and will be reported back
to P. Rothbart. He will be posting a job description and requirement for part-time
representative.
f)
Call for nominees for faculty representative to the Faculty Handbook Amendment
Committee (FHAC). Names should be forwarded to P. Rothbart.
g) Call for nominees for at-large faculty representative to APC Policy Committee. Names
should be forwarded to P Rothbart.
Motion: Faculty Council authorizes the Executive Committee to act on its behalf
in selecting the nominees to the FHAC and APC Policy Committee (J. Rosenthal),
seconded (W. Schlesinger), and passed unanimously. Call will be put out by P.
Rothbart.
Comment:
Is there a committee involved with program/department review? This will be discussed at
the October meeting.
h) Meeting locations were moved to A&E Center –VIP Room as it is a more modern facility
with better acoustics and ample parking. The October meeting will be held there, at which
time a decision will be made to continue to hold them there or go back to the Campus
Center.
5. Chair’s Comments
 FYI - There is a proposal that will be submitted soon to standardize tenure and promotion
procedures throughout the campus.

P. Rothbart will check with the Faculty Handbook Amendment Committee (FHAC) regarding
the development of the Faculty Ombudsman as indicated in the April 2012 minutes:
Final Motion: “Faculty Council recommends that the Faculty Handbook Amendment Committee investigate whether
it is worthwhile and feasible to create a ‘faculty ombudsperson’ or a position with similar responsibilities who would
act as a neutral and impartial agent in the procedural issues surrounding the faculty review process. Suggested
duties might include directing faculty to appropriate offices, committees, and college rules and policies concerning
the faculty review process, including tenure and promotion and appeals. Further, the person would listen to issues
while remaining neutral with respect to the facts to help the individual develop options for resolution.” A vote on
the revised motion was taken and unanimously passed.

Provost decision regarding calendar – will be discussed at the October meeting.
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
FYI - There is also a proposal on the table to reduce the size of Faculty Council but maintain
the same proportions.
6. Preliminary Budget Discussion - Faculty preferences need to be submitted to the IEBC
after the October Faculty Council meeting. Constituencies should be polled for budget
priorities for next year. Last year’s priorities are as follows:
Faculty salary increment
Increase part-time faculty base pay; mechanism to regularly increment part-time salaries
On-campus childcare
Expanded maternity and paternity leave
Increase in faculty development funds (including travel)
Long-term movement toward a 3/3 teaching load as part of a 24-credit workload
TE lines utilized as frequently as possible; focus budget process on faculty lines
Joining a tuition-exchange consortium
Increase TIAA-CREF contribution
Increase Emeriti contribution
Increased health benefits
After much discussion the following were identified as the top priorities:
a) A real increase in the salary for full- and part-time faculty, including increasing the base pay for
incoming part-time faculty;
b) An increase in the College’s percentage contributions to TIAA/CREF; and
c) An increase in funds for faculty development, which includes monies for travel.
Comments:
What effect does this have on the IEBC? J. Rosenthal explained that at the first IEBC
meeting (today) there was an expanded discussion about the consequences of the shortfall
in enrollment and a significant increase in the discount rate for the entering students, as
well as what it will take to rebalance this year’s budget. It was a sobering presentation of
the implications in the coming years. This can also be found in the back of the budget book
which is available online at the budget website. It contains some assumptions - tuition
increases around 4.9% per year; room and board increases; TIAA/CREF to increase by
.25% per year; increment rates at 3%; discount rates, new positions on the order of
$300,000/year; and IC20/20 being provided an extra $500,000 for each of the subsequent
years.
Motion: Faculty Council extends the meeting by 5 minutes (Blumberg) seconded
(Black) unanimously approved.
1. Stronger emphasis on recruitments by faculty whether it is with release time or other
compensation or an increase in the discount rate.
2. Suggestion to advocate for money for the Office of Dean of Faculty - electing from
the faculty a dean accountable to the faculty to sit on the various committees and
have an opportunity to report to Board of Trustees unfettered by other influences.
The requests should be submitted with rationalization for why items were chosen (white
paper).
Representatives are charged with contacting their constituencies for additional ideas that
should be provided to P. Rothbart by Friday, Sept 14.
T. Swensen will ask IBEC what is the most effective way for the budget committee to hear
from Faculty Council (i.e., a list of items, a white paper, etc.)
7. New Business
It was suggested that the Provost’s new title of Provost and Vice President of Educational
Affairs needs to be changed in the Policy Manual.
8. Executive Session-None
Meeting adjourned at 9:06 pm.
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